Deep Red
by Sandbat
Summary: Mere days after the the fateful flight, Lisa Reisert is drawn back into the intrigue surrounding the plot to assassinate Charles Keefe. Her involvement will bring her back into contact with a certain Manager, as they both fight to survive.
1. Treer

TITLE: Deep Red

RATING: M for language, violence, and adult situations.

GENRE: Thriller/Action

DISCLAIMER: It's Wes Craven's world, developed from Carl Ellsworth's script and characters; I'm just playing in it. This story was inspired by comments made by Wes Craven during an an interview in which questions regarding the possibility of a _Red Eye_ sequel were raised_,_ as well as many things he said during the film commentary itself on the DVD. In fact, I have to admit that I drew shamelessly from the commentary for ideas at certain points. This is my sequel.

My apologies in advance to both Wes Craven and the late Philip K. Dick. Read on, and you'll see why, eventually. I've been reading a lot of _Red Eye_ fanfiction here on since seeing it for the first time just a few weeks ago; if there is any resemblance to anyone else's work here, it's entirely unintentional.

My thanks goes out to NicolinaN, since it was reading her wonderful works that actually inspired me to get off my duff and start this thing. Punctuator, Chocobo Goddess, and Kaikamahine Mai Hawai'i also get props for being excellent writers.

EDIT 6/7/08: I've re-written a lot of the first chapter to reflect some of the character developments that are going on with Jackson Rippner in the fifth and sixth chapters. I'd like to thank everyone for all your wonderful reviews so far!

* * *

"_The Empire never ended."_

--Philip K. Dick, _VALIS._

Chapter 1: Treer.

Lisa Reisert was a loner; and it was that aspect of her existence that Jackson Rippner had found to be so intriguing about her when his initial surveillance had begun. She went through the same routine, day in, day out, with little variation - competent, efficient, and insular. She was polite, engaging, and accommodating with her customers at the hotel, but seemed to have little interaction with anyone outside of her job; her father being the sole exception, of course. Her "social life," such as it was, would have shamed a nun.

Jackson rarely allowed himself to focus on anything else but the job at hand. His life literally depended on being very, very good at what he did; one slip-up, one misstep, would put him in the same position as many others who had gone before him in his line of work - _dead. _all was said and done, his superiors saw him as an expendable resource; one that could and _would _easily disposed of and replaced should he fail them for any reason.

Still, he'd watched her for far longer than he'd originally intended to. Much longer than he would have needed to in order to find out what the best form of leverage would have been in order to get her to play her part in the assassination of Charles Keefe, in fact - his simple curiosity having deepened into something much more..._distracting_. With some distance between them, it had been easy to inwardly chide himself for getting attached to a woman that he would only be employing as a pawn in one assassination job, before abandoning her to whatever fate her coerced participation would have earned her.

But then Lisa's grandmother had passed away. She'd flown to Dallas for the funeral, and he'd been forced into a much different course of action than he'd originally planned. The short flirtation that he'd allowed himself to engage in with her before the flight had effectively sealed his doom.

Once he'd had his game face on, he'd been all business - but even then, it seemed that deep down in his psyche, a tiny spark of hope within him had remained that she might still _accept_ him somehow. Of course, he hadn't actually been consciously aware of this fact until he'd found himself bleeding out from two bullet holes in his body on the floor of her father's house. The realization of the true nature of eight weeks of obsession had struck him the moment he'd locked eyes with her that one final time, before he'd passed out from blood loss and the pain of his wounds.

_How fucking clichéd is that?_ he wondered, disgusted at the way he'd let his own feelings throw him off balance.

In hindsight, he knew he should have expected such an adverse reaction on her part, considering what he'd been trying to get her to do. However, her open revulsion for the nature of the plot he'd tried to rope her into - and for _him_, once he'd revealed his true colors - had crushed that faint, subliminal spark like a dying ember in an open downpour.

Even worse, her stubborn attempts to stall him had actually frightened _him _in a way he couldn't even begin to explain, even to himself. This, combined with the knowledge that_ they were going to kill him if he failed_ had caused him to lash out against her in ways that he'd hoped he wouldn't have to do when she'd just seemed like a sweet, meek, wallflower-insomniac who'd shut herself off from the rest of the world for no outwardly discernible reason.

But to his utter dismay, the self-described "24/7 people-pleaser" had thwarted him at almost every turn. Even when she'd become a crying mess under the pressure he was putting on her, she'd managed to find her own leverage against him. But it had been her revulsion that had ultimately undone him; she'd not only balked against him, she'd _rejected_ him on a purely personal, visceral level – the woman that he'd watched, wondered about, fixated on, and followed for _weeks. _He saw himself as she'd seen him – cold, soulless, snide, and despicable – every time he'd looked into her eyes. And he'd lost control. _He'd utterly lost control_ – of her, of himself, of the job, everything. He'd paid for that loss of control with two bullet wounds, a puncture wound in his leg from her shoe, several bruises, some minor fractures, a hole in his windpipe, and the complete failure of his mission. His life - or what had passed for a life - was now in utter ruins.

Jackson's rage had cooled in the hours since she'd defeated him, if only a little. He knew he hadn't been thinking straight when he'd gone to her father's house, instead of just melting away into the crowd the way he knew he should have done - the way he _would_ have done, if he'd kept his wits about him. But no; he'd followed her back under the pretense of finishing the job, and finishing her off so she couldn't talk to the authorities about the unwilling role she'd played in it. But really he'd wanted...what? To see her bleed and beg? To reject her in turn? To see her hurt and broken? All of the above?

He had to admit that he couldn't help but feel a little admiration for Lisa as well, seeing as how she'd foiled him so completely. He knew he'd underestimated her, and that mistake had cost him everything. But it went beyond that, beyond simple intelligence and the ability to think on her feet despite everything he'd put her through. If she'd only put her irritating self-righteousness aside, Jackson was fairly confident that Lisa could have had a future in the business - which was more than he could say for himself at the present moment.

Now all he had left to feel was dread, though he tried his best not to let it show.

He'd already been moved once, out of the hospital where he'd originally been taken and treated. Whoever had done it had posted guards over him in his new location; Jackson wasn't sure, but he'd pegged them as FBI agents, or perhaps CIA. It didn't matter. Sooner or later, his superiors would get someone past them who would make sure he wouldn't be even more of a liability than he'd already become. They always did. In fact, he was surprised that it hadn't happened yet.

He wondered they meant to let him wallow in his defeat for a while before taking him out, or even if they were giving him a chance to off himself first. Some of his fellow operatives who'd disgraced themselves as badly as he had just done had taken that opportunity when it had been offered to them. All things considered, it would probably be a better way out than what they had planned for him.

_Fuck that_, Jackson thought. He didn't know if he'd ever get a chance to escape in his present state...but if he did, he was going to take it.

The moment of truth came nearly three days into his recovery after the incident. Jackson had been hovering on the edge of sleep and in a haze of painkillers when he received a visitor. He heard the man's voice first – deep, almost sepulchral – addressing the guard in the hallway.

"He's not supposed to have any visitors. HQ was very clear on this - " the guard protested.

"It's all right, I have clearance. You won't be reprimanded." the deep voice rumbled.

Jackson smirked, picturing a Jedi mind-trick handwave accompanying the newcomer's assurances. _Here it comes_, he thought. At least he was drugged. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad that way...

Then the visitor entered his room – a tall, imposing black man who was sharply-dressed in an expensive suit and tie. He looked down at Jackson with a small, almost sympathetic half-smile, and sat down in a nearby chair.

And Jackson _knew_. The stranger's demeanor, his mannerisms, that half-pitying _look_, everything about him practically screamed that he was a fellow Manager.

"Nice job with that guy in the hall," Jackson rasped through his bandages. His voice had improved over the last few days, but only a little.

The man glanced back at the door – which was still open, so the guard could monitor all of the proceedings - and shrugged. Then he pulled out a wallet, flipping it open and displaying his badge.

"Mr. Rippner, my name is Jacob Treer, and I'm here on behalf of the Office of Homeland Security."

Sure enough, it was all there in his I.D. - except that Jackson didn't believe a word of it. He figured that his disbelief must have shown on his face, because that half-smile was suddenly back; only Treer looked amused this time, rather than sympathetic.

"I'll be frank with you, Mr. Rippner – we have no interest in you personally. We would like to know who put you up to the attempted assassination of Charles Keefe, and we're willing to make you a deal."

Jackson's mind spun as he tried to fathom the reason for this deception. Were they trying to see if he would talk to the authorities? To find out if he already _had_ talked? The truly ironic thing was, if this guy had been a real Agent of Homeland Security, Jackson would have jumped all over any prospective deals thrown his way - even if he knew it would only be delaying the inevitable. His employers _would _get him sooner or later.

But as he sat there staring back at the man in the chair across from him, Jackson wondered – why hadn't there been any legitimate attempts to question him up to this point? The authorities here, whoever they were, had just let him lie in bed for almost three days. An orderly came in to check on him, change the dressings on his wounds, and administer medication every now and then, but that was it. What was going on here?

_Never mind,_ Jackson thought. He wasn't telling this guy anything. He wasn't going to give a fellow Manager the pleasure of thinking him duped, of seeing him beg for protection from the supposed G-Man in exchange for whatever scant information he could provide. He sat up as much as his wounds and the restraints that they'd put him in would allow, and put on the most infuriating grin he could manage.

_Fuck you_, he thought, sincerely hoping that Treer could read it in his eyes, and that the insolence was emanating from him in searingly palpable, blistering waves through all of the meds they'd given him.

Treer just smiled back in return, and Jackson knew that his instincts had been right. The Manager stood

.

"I can see this is not a good time, Mr. Rippner. We'll be in touch." He stood, and left the room. That half-smile had never left his face.

_FUCK! _Jackson thought as he lay back in bed. He'd enjoyed casting his defiance in Treer's teeth, but he knew was screwed. If they'd already gotten a Manager into where he was, he figured that he could probably count the remaining span of his life in hours.

...

Jacob Treer exited the building and made his way around the block to a parking lot a short ways away, where an SUV was parked, and got in.

"Did he take the deal?" the man asked in the driver's seat asked. The hood of his sweatshirt was still drawn up, and for good reason. Treer knew that it wouldn't have done very well for his companion to be recognized, as he and his family were still supposed to be embarking upon a tour of America's coastal cities in order to assess their level of security.

"No, but he just told me everything we need to know – and he doesn't even know it yet," Treer responded. He sighed, almost sadly.

"Damn it - It didn't have to be this way," Treer's companion lamented.

"Tell me about it," Treer commiserated. "Look – why don't you take Lydia and the kids and disappear for a few days? Tell the press that the attack put things a little bit behind schedule. No one would blame you at this point --"

"I can't do that. This attack just proves how unstable things are. I can't just run and hide – it would send the wrong kind of message."

Treer nodded. He had a feeling that his friend of over twenty years would say something like that. And even with the danger that he knew was still lurking just over the horizon, he knew Charles Keefe too well to try and dissuade him from his choice of action.

"Is Lisa Reisert's life in danger? She was practically a friend of the family even before this mess," Keefe asked.

"Count on it," Treer answered grimly.

"Then I want protection for her and her father - around the clock," Keefe said. "Can we spare enough people for that?"

"If you don't mind, I have a better idea," Treer stated, as Keefe started the vehicle and made for the highway. "If Miss Reisert handled that situation half as well as I've heard, why don't we bring her into the fold?"

"Do you really think she'll be up to it, after all she's been through?"

"We could give her some basic training in self-defense, and see if she wants to go any further from there," Treer said.

"Okay, let's pitch it to her, then – but let's leave up to her. I don't want this stupid feud to ruin any more lives," Keefe responded.


	2. Reentering Realtime

"_The Sybil of Cumae protected the Roman Republic and gave timely warnings. In the first century C.E.. she foresaw the murders of the Kennedy brothers, Dr. King, and Bishop Pike. She saw the common denominators in the four murdered men: first, they stood in defense of the liberties of the Republic; and second, each was a religious leader. For this they were killed. The Republic had once again become an Empire with a Caesar. 'The Empire never ended.'"_

--Philip K. Dick, _VALIS._

* * *

Chapter 2: Re-entering Realtime.

In the three days since the fateful flight, Lisa Reisert found that her mind was assimilating things that otherwise might have gone unnoticed. Lights seemed brighter, sounds and smells were almost unnaturally sharp. She found herself analyzing every person who came into earshot or her line of sight, assessing everyone and everything for any kind of potential threat.

It was a state that she was quite familiar with, having experienced it after the assault two years ago. The psychiatrist that she'd seen at the time had called it "hyper-vigilance," and had suggested that it was a side effect of her trauma. Now, it just seemed like a good idea.

The hotel was now at one of the slowest points of the business day. The only other people with her in the lobby at the moment were the young couple emerging from the elevators, and the girls' soccer team huddled in one corner, who were in town to take part in a local competition (she wished them luck, whoever they were up against.) Then there were the workmen, who were constantly in and out due to the fact that there was still a huge, gaping hole where room 4080 had been. The strike had rendered it and all of the rooms around it unusable for three floors - and they probably would be so for weeks.

_Gee, I'm almost tempted to find out who hired Jackson Rippner myself, so I can track them down,_ she mused darkly. _I'd bill them._

In her state of heightened awareness, the injuries she'd sustained were making themselves painfully known. She knew that they would probably catch up to her eventually, and she promised herself that she'd take that proffered rest when enough time had passed, and the furor from the incident had died down a little. Charles Keefe and his family were already gone, having moved on to the next leg of their tour. Like her, Keefe had refused to back down from his perceived duties just because someone had decided to make him a target.

Lisa knew that Rippner had survived, and that he'd been taken to a hospital in the area before being moved into Federal custody. The FBI Agents who'd questioned her first had told her that much. Beyond that, she didn't know - and at this point she really didn't care, just as long as he stayed where he was.

She had already been questioned by agents of Homeland Security, of the FBI, the CIA, and the ATF, and any number of news reporters regarding the assassination plot. She'd spoken freely to the former entities and done her best to dodge the latter, at her own inclination as much as at the insistence of the former.

The most difficult session to get through had been the one with Keefe himself, when she'd had to tell him personally what she'd almost helped Rippner accomplish. Keefe had been very understanding, given the circumstances...

"_That monster threatened your father,"_ he'd said. _"There's no telling how any of us would have reacted under the same circumstances. But you beat him." _

...and that had made her feel even _worse_, somehow.

"_Let me tell you something, before you start to beat yourself up too badly over this,_ " Keefe had said, noticing her distress. _"People like Rippner are trained to keep their victims always on the edge of fear, in a constant state of crisis so they can't think clearly, and the only option seems to be whatever it is they're trying to strongarm them into doing. You got past that fear. You beat a trained professional at his own game." _

Keefe's next question had been whether Jackson Rippner had ever said anything about who had hired him to carry out the assassination. No luck there; he hadn't let a single word slip during the entire flight regarding who'd put him up to it. Lisa had a feeling that whoever they were, they'd probably threatened to go after him if he'd failed. Enough of his words, and his actions during the incident, had alluded to this. But he'd never let on who it was.

She'd already told them this, along with everything else she could think of that might help them. Even so, she couldn't help but wonder – had he let something slip out, even subliminally, at any time? Something that she'd overlooked, that might help Keefe and the authorities catch whoever had hired him?

It had almost been like he'd appeared out of nowhere - but Lisa knew that such a scheme couldn't have been birthed in a vacuum. He'd had accomplices, associates. He'd said as much. One of them had swiped her father's wallet. She'd rammed another one of them (or had it been the same guy?) with an SUV in front of her father's house. She'd heard his neutral, normal sounding half of his conversation with someone on the phone _("Work, for the last time...")_ before they'd taken off. And she'd seen him texting someone as they were preparing to land.

The smoking rubble that had once been suite 4080 attested to the fact that they'd somehow gotten a _missile_ past the Coast Guard in the bay below the hotel. She wondered how they'd accomplishedthat feat, and what it said about the current state of "Homeland Security" as it already stood.

Theories were forming in her mind despite her attempts to focus on her work, and her attempts to jump-start her life outside of work. A lot of them led her down uncomfortable paths in her mind; she wasn't sure that she wanted to contemplate what they implied.

She hadn't slept much since the incident; Jackson's ice-blue eyes had haunted her dreams. The first night after it had all happened, she'd been back with him in the plane's lavatory, only this time in darkness. She'd felt him throw her back against the wall, with his fingers had clamped over her mouth - and she'd been helpless, unable to fight or scream. She'd felt his breath against her cheek; then she'd heard his voice in her ear_ ("I'm here, Leese. Let's finish what we started...")_

She'd awakened in a cold sweat and a tangle of bedclothes, in a state of rising fury - with the realization that Keefe was right. She _had_ beaten him. She'd spent the last two years in a living in a state of semi-panic after the rape, throwing herself into her work in order to keep from falling apart. She wasn't about to let Rippner do it to her all over again, even if just in her dreams. She was tired of being afraid. Her life had been on hold long enough.

Her attention was caught briefly by a news story from one of the televisions in the lobby, the one that was always tuned to CNN. It featured a fiery diatribe from the Secretary of Defense Ferris Sherman deploring the attempted assassination, and claiming that the event proved just how vital it was for American forces to step up the War On Terror overseas. Lisa tuned it out after a moment – it was a rerun from earlier that day, and there were other things going on now that required her focus...

...like the tall, sharply-dressed African-American man who'd just come in, and was currently approaching the her at the front desk. He had "G-MAN" practically written all over him. _Here we go again..._

"Miss Reisert? My name is Jacob Treer," he said, flashing an I.D. in his wallet, which identified him as being with the Department of Homeland Security. "I'm terribly sorry to disturb you, but there are a few more questions we need to ask regarding the incident. I was wondering if you'd be willing to talk to me after you get off work this evening."

"Sure...of course," she agreed. Actually, she was off in less than two hours, as it was nearing 7:00PM in the evening.

"Good. We'll talk then. If you''ll excuse me -" he stepped aside to confer with two agents who were still working on the scene.

"Wow, Lisa, you sure are popular with these guys," said Cynthia, coming up to stand next to her at the desk. "Some of the forensics guys are still going through glass fragments upstairs. I could go try and snag one. We could double date!"

Lisa chortled; it was almost a snort, the kind that would have sprayed any beverage across the counter, had she been drinking one.

"I'm sorry...that was probably inappropriate..." Cynthia backpedaled, misreading her response.

"No, actually that sounds like a plan," Lisa said, grinning slightly. She and Cynthia were actually becoming friends – one of the few good things to come out of the whole ordeal, as far as Lisa was concerned. Her quirky sense of humor was helping to make the aftermath more tolerable, in places.

And despite the gravity of what had occurred, and what had _almost_ occurred, some of the staff were already making light of the situation in an attempt to relieve some of the tension that still remained. Room 4080 would go down in history. People were already starting to joke about putting particularly difficult customers in there._ "Just stick 'em in 4080"_ was already becoming a catchphrase. She'd been appalled the first time she'd heard one of the employees crack a joke about it – _they_ didn't know what she'd just been through, what Rippner had forced her to do, the danger her father had been in, that the Keefes had been in - but she'd been too busy with a customer at that moment to say anything. After a while, she just decided to let it go.

"I don't think that's what he had in mind, though," Lisa said after a moment. "I don't his wife would appreciate it. He had on a wedding band," she explained, when Cynthia responded with a blank look.

"Oh...I didn't notice," Cynthia said.

Lisa had noticed. These days, there was very little that she _didn't_ notice.

...

"Thank you for agreeing to speak with me, Miss Reisert," Treer said, when she'd clocked out for the day. "I know we've already taken up enough of your time - "

"I'll do anything I can do to help," Lisa said. "If you can think of anything the other guys might have missed..."

"Actually, this doesn't have anything to do with Jackson Rippner – at least, not directly," Treer told her. "We have reason to believe that your life might be in danger."

Lisa swallowed. She'd wondered...

"I thought that might end up being the case," she said. "I knew he was working with other people. I didn't know if Jacks...if _Rippner's_ failure meant they were done with me, with my dad, or if they'd want revenge..."

She'd actually asked one of the FBI agents about it, the day after the flight. They'd told her that they didn't know how far things went yet, that it was too early to tell. She thought that they might not have wanted to alarm her. She'd wondered if she was being watched. She'd been watched for eight weeks before the flight, and she hadn't known. But in the state she'd been in, she thought she'd _noticed_ things - felt eyes on her in moments when she should have been alone. She'd been checking in with her dad a lot over the past few days, just to be sure everything was okay.

It would make her feel better if she knew that the "good guys" were the ones who were doing the watching...

"Do you own a gun, Miss Reisert? Treer asked her.

"I do now," she said. She did. She had purchased it the day after the flight. She'd never been a big fan of guns, not even after her rape. She still didn't know very much about them – the first one that she'd ever used had been the one that had belonged to the hitman that had been sent to kill her dad if she'd failed to comply with Jackson's demands. She'd gotten a nine-millimeter. It fired bullets and fit in her handbag, and that was all she needed. She'd promised herself that she'd to go to the local shooting range at least three times a week.

"Charles Keefe asked me to put additional people on guard detail around your father and yourself," Treer said.

_Additional people,_ Lisa noted. _That means they already have people watching us..._

"We'll do what we can, but it we think it will benefit you both - you and your father – if you start taking additional precautions. Have you ever considered self-defense training, for example?

"What, like martial arts?" Lisa asked. She'd actually been looking into that herself, along with the shooting lessons. There was a Tae Kwon Do studio near her condo that she was planning on visiting, as soon as she had time...

"Something like that," Treer said, with an odd half-smile. "We have people who can teach you, who can teach your father too, if he'd like. We'll be talking to him as well. It's like the ancient Chinese proverb goes -"

"Protect someone from assassins for a day, or teach them to protect themselves for a lifetime?" Lisa asked.

"Exactly," Treer answered, with the same half-smile.

Something had been bugging Lisa through the entire exchange – indeed, from the moment that everything had started. Sitting on the plane next to Jackson, she hadn't been able to think about anything but stopping him, saving her dad, and saving the Keefes. She'd been unable to put it in words during the past half-week, though it had remained in the back of her mind. The word _'assassins'_ was what finally brought it into sudden, sharp focus.

"What if it's all starting again?" Lisa wondered out loud.

"What if _what_ is starting again?" Treer asked.

"When I was a little girl, my mom would tell me about how things were when she was my age, in the sixties. She was ten years old when JFK was shot," Lisa explained. "She used to talk about how scary it was, when it seemed like all the great leaders were being cut down right in front of everyone, and no one know who was doing it, or _why."_

She glanced up at Treer, suddenly apprehensive. His face was unreadable. She remembered all of the conspiracy theories she'd heard growing up, the ones that were just part of America's collective consciousness. The official line was - would always be - that it had been some nut with a gun who'd been acting alone, in every single case. _Lee Harvey Oswald. James Earl Ray. Sirhan Sirhan_. But nobody that Lisa had never spoken to, had gotten the stories from, ever seemed to really _believe_ that. It had all seemed too big, the effect had always been too massive, for any single lone gunmen to have perpetuated it.

" 9/11 changed everything." This was the phrase that Lisa had heard the pundits use, over and over. _Did it?_ _Are we really living in any more fear now then we were back then?_ Lisa wondered. _Or is it just a different kind of fear? _

_When did things change? Did they ever really change? _

She'd grown up with the fear of The Bomb hanging over her head, like everyone born since The Bomb had first been used on the world's stage. How was living in fear of terrorism any different than living in fear of someone hitting the fabled red button one day?

_(- always on the edge of fear, in a constant state of crisis, so they can't think clearly -)_

"It would have been so easy to just get a gunman into the hotel somehow," Lisa said. "Not that I would have wanted there to be, of course...but why didn't they do it that way? Why use a missile?"

Treer was studying Lisa now, in the seconds in which all of these thoughts were racing through her mind. He thought he could actually detect the moment in which her paradigm shift took place. It wasn't the first time he'd seen it happen. It made him feel better about what he knew he was eventually going to have to ask her to do. He always felt better when people knew what they were getting into, knew _fully_, in advance.

"The circumstances are different. John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Dr. Martin Luther King were revolutionary, charismatic leaders and reformers. They were working against people who were trying to foster an era of fear and uncertainty. Our crooks may have similar goals, and they may see Charles Keefe as a similar threat to those goals - but tactics change with the times. In any case, it's obvious that they wanted to make as big a bang as possible."

"A big, brash message..." Lisa said, echoing Jackson Rippner's words from the plane.

"Precisely."

"A big brash message _to whom?_"

"That's the real question, now isn't it?" Treer asked.

_(She's figuring it out...)_

"If it's all right, there are some people I'd like you to meet," Treer said finally. "We've actually been brainstorming about it for about three days now, and I'm thinking your input would be welcome. After all, you were the one who was actually there with Rippner on that plane."

"Meet them when?" Lisa asked.

"As soon as you're ready," Treer said. "Charles thought you might want a break from the whole thing, but it seems that you've been giving it a lot of thought already. I'm sure the rest of our group would be very interested in what you have to say."


	3. Created and Destroyed

_"I've always been told that for each person, there is a sentence - a series of words - which has the power to destroy him. When Fat told me about Leon Stone I realized (this came years after the first realization) that another sentence exists, another series of words, that will heal the person. If you're lucky you will get the second; but you can be certain of getting the first: that is the way it works."_

--Philip K. Dick, _VALIS._

* * *

Chapter Three: Created and Destroyed.

Jackson woke, overwhelmed by a sudden, overpowering sense of loss. As usual, he had been dreaming of Lisa. He was also drugged to within an inch of his life, which might have had something to do with what happened next.

_He'd been dreaming about what might have been if he hadn't gone through with the plot, if he'd continued to behave like the normal guy that he'd convinced Lisa he was at the airport._

_After a few hours of pleasant conversation on the plane, she actually felt comfortable enough to doze off, despite the turbulence that they were still occasionally being subjected to. Even after only knowing him for only a little while, she'd trusted him enough to doze off..._

_Her head was almost on his shoulder. He could smell her hair from where he was. She was a vision of loveliness, like something out of a classic painting; a work of art. An angel. And all he could think about was how ecstatically glad he was that he hadn't gone through with it. He could call his associate off, say there had been a change in plans, make up any story he wanted; that was no problem. She'd wake up never suspecting a thing. _

_Yeah, his life would be in danger now – so would hers, in fact. And at some point, he'd have to tell her what was really going on, and what he'd almost tried to make her do. But she'd **trust** him. She'd trust him, and he'd protect her for as long as he needed to._

"_I'll protect you, Leese..." he whispered to her slumbering form. He knew could doze off beside her, in what would probably be their last few moments of peace before the client found out that the assignment had been blown. _

_He knew exactly what he'd say when they awoke. "It's okay. Nobody has to know that we just slept together," he'd joke. She'd laugh. She'd be embarrassed, but she'd still laugh, like she'd done during their flirting banter at the beginning of the flight..._

Then he woke, drifting for a moment in a state of confusion and dismay as the bliss of the dream faded - and the reality of his situation suddenly, brutally reasserted itself.

_What the fuck?_ Of all the dreams he'd had so far, this one had actually been the most painful, and the most terrifying. He couldn't believe that there was a part of his brain that could have even conceived of just _blowing off_ an assignment – blowing it off_ for a_ _woman_ - an act that surely would have gotten both of them killed. And in such a case, they would've ended up doing her dad in anyway, too.

And to dream_ that_, after everything that had happened, that he would have given it all up for her...and then to awaken to a sense of crushing misery that it_ hadn't happened that way..._

_What the fuck is wrong with me? It's got to be the drugs. Please let it just be the drugs..._

_"I'm not suicidal,"_ he'd told her on the plane. Had he been wrong? Had it been a _lie_? Or had there been a part of him, deep inside, that had _wanted_ her to stop him? The thought shocked him, but it grew more compelling the longer he lay there thinking about it.

_That's just the medicine talking,_ The Manager-voice urged him. _We were there to do a job. We just underestimated her. We let her get away from us._

Exactly, he told the voice in his head. We _let_ her get away from us. We_ allowed _it to happen. His rage flared up again - but it was centered as much on himself as it was on her. It upset him that he'd allowed himself to be affected so deeply by _anyone_, to the point that he'd botched the job as badly as he had. But still...something remained, beneath the simmering resentment he felt for Lisa, beneath even his grudging respect for the way she'd kept her head and countered him_._ He hated himself for that. He told himself that he hated her. He hated the fact that even now, he couldn't stop thinking about her, _dreaming_ about her...

He'd known from the beginning it was hopeless. He was there to do a job; to get her to do a job, one that would end up destroying her. Damning her, the way he was pretty certain he was damned - no matter how much he'd assured her that life would go back to normal once it was all over. She'd refused. Every single point at which he'd figured her will to be broken, she'd turned it around and used it as a weapon against him. He realized that he'd actually handed her any number of weapons during the flight. The pen she'd picked up somewhere had just been an outward manifestation of this fact.

Taken that way, everything on that plane - objects, situations, and ever their fellow passengers - could have been seen as pieces in the metaphorical chess game that had gone on between them. But he'd gone in with the assumption that nothing more than threats would be needed, because he'd already assumed he was in control. With the benefit of hindsight, he realized that this had been his first mistake. _We all know the old saying about people who make assumptions..._

He realized now that his thoroughly infatuated state, he'd been assured of losing control the moment he came into actual, personal contact with her. Simply doing so in and of itself had been an act of surrendering control. Now the question that occurred to him was whether or not that had been his subconscious goal all along - not to coerce her into obeying his will, but to give in to _hers_.

She'd said it in that bathroom: _"You don't have to do this. Any of this."_

Had some traitorous part of him - some heretofore unknown part of his psyche - been somehow_ triggered _by those words? Had it influenced him to blow the job on purpose? Or had he lost himself at some point during the eight weeks he'd shadowed her?

_I know the answer to that,_ he thought, remembering the moment when it had all become clear.

The very idea was preposterous, the Manager-voice within him protested. All she'd had to do was make the call. There was no way out of it for either of them at that point. The knowledge of this, and the desperation it had bred within him, had haunted him during the entire flight, and had spurred him on to acts of violence in order to get the job done. But she'd just _kept on stalling._ He'd acted accordingly -

Yes, he'd acted. He'd mocked her, knocked her out, thrown her against the wall, and choked her. He'd gone back to her father's house - and after a session of cat-and-mouse, he'd finally overpowered her.

_"You're pathetic,"_ she'd said.

That had done it. Those words had undone him utterly. Oh, he'd lashed out in a very typical way, one that had been in keeping with his wounded ego. He'd thrown her down the stairs, where he'd given her - and moments later, her father - access to the gun that they'd used to take him down; handing her yet another weapon. Of course, ordinary logic dictated that this had just been an unhappy twist of fate where he was concerned. But in his current state, he could not see how that act had not been somehow deliberate.

Any further introspection was averted by the sudden emergence of the orderly. Peeking out between his half-closed eyelids, Jackson knew this was it. The information was all there, written explicitly in the kid's grim, pale face. Someone had finally ordered his demise. He wondered what had taken them so long.

Drugged, restrained as he was, there was no way he could fight back. He figured that the syringe would either contain something that would send him into cardiac arrest, or cause sudden, massive brain-death. As the kid lifted it to the I.V. tube on his arm, Jackson slurred;

"I hope it's worth it." He was a little bit gratified to hear how much his voice had improved in such a relatively short time.

The orderly - he looked to be no older than maybe twenty or twenty-one - paled even further, and flinched.

"Y-you're supposed to be asleep," the stammered.

"It's okay," Jackson assured him, with a glance at the hall outside the door. The guard, generally ever-present, was nowhere to be seen. Jackson figured that a payoff had probably occurred at some point.

"You're just a cog in a bigger machine. You just do your part and move on," he said.

"I can't...you're not supposed to be awake!" the kid exclaimed in panic.

"So? You have your orders. You have an objective," Jackson urged, a note of irony creeping into his voice. It figured that the last assassination he'd have to manage would be his own. _Why not?_ "If you hesitate, you might as well use that on yourself--"

"You don't understand..._they said they'd kill my mom," _the kid protested, bursting into tears.

"Oh," Jackson responded, mouthing the word more than enunciating it. "Well, look at it this way...it's your mom's life. I'm just a loose end. If you fail, they _will _kill your mother, and then they'll just send someone else to take care of me. They'll keep on sending people until one of them succeeds."

"That's exactly what they said," the kid wailed, sobbing openly now. "But you weren't supposed to be awake. _I_ _can't do it if you're awake."_

"How about if I pretend to be asleep?" Jackson asked bitingly. At this point, he was playing with the kid, since he knew there was no way the orderly was going to go through with it. But it was almost a matter of professional pride; what kind of a Manager was he if he couldn't even convince a sap like this to kill him, even if it meant his mother's life?

"That's enough, son," a deep voice rumbled from behind the kid. "You won't be taking any lives today."

Treer stepped into the room behind the orderly, and gently took the syringe from his hand. And despite his words to the kid, Jackson felt his stomach unclench a little in relief, even through his drugged haze.

"What about his mom?" he sneered, figuring Treer to be the Manager that they'd sent to work the kid into doing the job for them.

"She's okay. We have people watching her," Treer said. Something was different about him, about the way he was acting; the way he spoke, compared with last time. The way he was carrying himself. He was all G-Man now, Jackson realized.

"She'll be all right," Treer told the kid. "Whoever made the threat won't be carrying it out. We got their operative outside her house," he said. "She's a little shaken up, though; it might do her good to see you right now. The guy at the front desk will escort you out."

The orderly nodded, and then just about fled the room - leaving Jackson alone with Treer. He was still holding the syringe, Jackson noted. Treer closed the door. It was the first time that Jackson could remember it having been closed in the entire time he'd been there. There was still no guard outside, in any case.

"The client who hired you to manage the Keefe job doesn't want you to talk," Treer said, capping the syringe and put it in the breast pocket of his coat. "We're going to have to move you again," he explained.

"Whatever," Jackson answered, after a moment. What the hell was going on? Had his initial instincts about Treer been wrong? Had Treer faked him out intentionally?

Treer gave Jackson the same half-smile as before, and drew another syringe out of his coat, from the opposite pocket, and prepared to insert it into Jackson's I.V. tube.

"Hey! What --"

"This is just sodium pentathol," Treer said. "I think it's time we had a little talk."

"Truth serum?" Jackson asked. He almost cackled; he couldn't think of anything more redundant. "I never lie."

"Your reputation proceeds you, Mr. Rippner. But see, I don't know you, and I don't know how trustworthy that is. All I know is that someone tried to take a swipe at Charles Keefe – and I'm going to ask you to tell me as much as you know about that before they get any more funny ideas about tying up loose ends." His hand still hovered inches away from the tube.

"Nobody's asked me anything yet, anything at all," Jackson said. "It's almost like they don't want to know."

Treer smiled fully, almost sadly.

"That wouldn't surprise me," he said.

"I'm going to want more protection – better than this," Jackson told him.

"Of course. We're still prepared to make you a deal, Mr. Rippner," Treer said.

"I got the assignment through one of my usual contacts. I only ever spoke to the client _once_, over the phone. We never actually met. He used a scrambler, but he sounded American. We knew right away that he was political," Jackson said. "He made it clear that if we failed - if any of us messed up at any time, for any reason – that none of us would be walking away from it. He transferred us the money. We were never able to trace it back to anyone specific."

Treer nodded. It seemed that he knew that more than one would-be client had been blackmailed and burned that way, or given up to the authorities in exchange for protection or a lighter sentence. It was the nature of the business. You kept tabs on everyone who hired you, if possible, in case leverage was ever needed at any future date.

"But you do know who it is, don't you? You know that they're very capable of doing exactly what they threatened to do if you failed."

"You saw what almost just happened, didn't you?" Jackson said, his throat suddenly very dry. He realized that he hadn't spoken this much at all since his throat has been punctured.

"We hired Russians for the actual hit, because it wasn't supposed to look like an inside job." Jackson said, "but that's exactly what it was. Keefe has enough political enemies over here as it is. Some of them go way back – and all the way to the top. You do the math."

"We already have," Treer said. "Let me guess – the rocket was their idea. They requested it specifically."

Jackson smirked by way of response. Treer had hit it dead-on.

"I imagine the attack was supposed to have achieved several objectives," Treer speculated. "The most obvious would have been to take out Charles Keefe and his family, of course – and also to serve as a warning, a sign that we still aren't safe from acts of terror, that we'll _never_ be safe, unless they're allowed to have their way with us," Treer said. "They want to step things up a bit on a worldwide scale, while making it look like Keefe's mouth was what got him - and the rest of us - in trouble when the shit starts to hit the fan. And if they can make a buck or two in the meantime, so much the better. Am I close to the mark, Mr. Rippner?"

The smirk had melted from Jackson's face. Treer had changed again, as he stood there speaking. Jackson could feel it, see it. The Manager was back.

"Why do you need me, if you already know?" he asked, hating the way his voice broke in mid-sentence.

"Why don't you let us worry about that, Mr. Rippner?" Treer asked. He finally jabbed the needle into the I.V. tube as the door opened and two men in uniforms entered. One of them prepared to push the gurney Jackson was on through the door, with the other bringing the rack with his I.V. bag along with it. The sodium penthathol would ensure that he was completely out of it during the entire trip to his new destination.


	4. Cube

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Yes, I have seen _Iron Man_ recently. No, it's not what led to this little subplot, though I wouldn't blame anyone for thinking that the timing is somewhat suspicious. XP

There is a nod to another Wes Craven film in this chapter, near the end. Kudos to whoever spots it. :D Constructive criticism is certainly welcome. At this point, I'd like to thank everyone who has reviewed so far.

* * *

_The Empire is the institution, the codification of derangement; it is insane and imposes its insanity upon us by violence, since its nature is a violent one. To fight the Empire is to be infected by its derangement. This is a paradox; whoever defeats a segment of the Empire becomes the Empire; it proliferates like a virus, imposing its form on its enemies. Thereby, it becomes its enemies._

--Philip K. Dick, _VALIS._

* * *

Chapter 4 – Cube

The days following Lisa's first meeting with Jacob Treer were interesting, to say the least.

She'd followed him down a corridor of her own hotel to a suite 1974, which had been booked by Homeland Security for use as a temporary headquarters while they investigated the scene of the attempt on the Keefe's lives.

"Can we trust you, Miss Reisert?" Treer asked her. "You have to understand, what you're about to see and hear can't leave this room."

"You have my word," Lisa said. "I'll do whatever I can to help catch whoever tried to have Mr. Keefe and his family killed."

"Do you mean that? It's within my authority to formally deputize you, if that's the case," Treer said.

"Deputize me? You mean--"

"You'd be another pair of boots on the ground, so to speak," Treer said. "It's up to you. I think I should tell you, Charles already has the utmost faith in you and your abilities, especially considering the way you comported yourself against a ruthless, well-trained member of the opposition."

Lisa swallowed, the sudden pang of guilt like a heavy, leaden lump in her throat. _They don't understand what a close call it was - how close I came to giving in, to letting Jack win, _she thought miserably. She remembered the feelings of fear, shame, and helplessness all too well. They'd felt uncomfortably similar to the feelings she'd had two years ago, after--

"I'll do whatever I can to help," she repeated, abruptly putting a stop to that train of thought before it could go any further.

"In that case..."

He opened the door. Lisa followed him inside.

The entire side of one room of the suite had been transformed into a veritable nerve center. It was jammed with so much computer and surveillance equipment that Lisa wondered how they'd gotten all of it in there without her noticing.

Sitting in front of a five-screen array was a medium-sized, dark haired man dressed in jeans and a bowling shirt. To Lisa, he had the sunken, shrunken look of someone who'd lost a lot of weight in a dramatically short time, or who'd just come out on the other side of a particularly nasty illness.

"Lisa, I'd like you to meet our friend Kyle. He calls himself Cube," Treer said. "Kyle, this is Lisa Reisert."

Kyle (Cube?) barely glanced back up in their direction.

"You were on that plane, right? With their middle-management guy," Cube said. "Pleased to meet you."

"Have you ever met an anthrax survivor, Miss Reisert?" Treer asked her. She replied that she hadn't. "You have now," Treer informed her.

"Great band, Anthrax. I listened to them in high school," Cube quipped, his eyes still on the screens. "Can't say that I like their namesake, however - or maybe it just didn't like _me_."

"Kyle here has been trying to find out where that missile came from," Treer told Lisa. "Any luck, pal?"

"You know, they have a saying - _'in Soviet Russia, luxury hotel fires missile at you.'_" Cube responded.

"That's not funny at _all_," Treer retorted.

"Neither is this," Cube answered, grabbing a sheaf of papers from the tray of a nearby printer and handing them to Treer.

"Standard anti-tank weapon – supposedly part of a shipment that went missing in Iraq when it was seized by insurgents," Cube explained.

"Reported missing by the Sherman Corporation," Treer read aloud.

"Wait...Sherman? As in _Ferris_ Sherman?" Lisa asked. "The Secretary of Defense?"

"The lady catches on fast," Cube said.

"It would put him in quite an awkward position, having to explain how one of his missiles came to be fired at the hotel room where Charles Keefe, and his wife and kids were staying," Treer mused.

"Didn't he resign from his position as C.E.O. when he was appointed Secretary of Defense?" Lisa asked. She remembered that there had been something of a scandal when he'd been selected by President Neumann following the terrorist attacks in 2001. Some had said that the appointment of the head of a major defense industries corporation to the office of Secretary of Defense was a clear example of a conflict of interest. There'd also been charges of cronyism, of nepotism, as his father Ferris Sherman Sr. had been the director of the CIA during most of the 1960s and early 1970s. Both father and son had been ardent supporters of Neumann during his initial election campaign, as well as his recent re-election.

Ferris Sherman had tried to write the allegations off in the media as 'liberal slander,' but had stepped down from his position of C.E.O. nonetheless.

"Sure, he resigned as C.E.O," Cube answered. "He still retains most of the corporation's controlling stock. But that's something that the esteemed representatives of the news media have decided not to explore too closely. And if that isn't bad enough, his father still pulls strings in the CIA."

"How often do shipments of weapons just '_go missing_?'" Lisa asked them.

"More often than we'd like," Treer soberly informed her.

"Do you think someone's trying to frame Ferris Sherman for the attack on Keefe?" Lisa asked. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Cube shoot a quick sidelong glance at Treer, as if to gage his response.

"We haven't ruled out the possibility," Treer told her, his voice heavy with an implication that Lisa caught.

"You don't think he actually had something to do with it, do you?" she asked. "I mean...using a weapon that could be traced back that easily wouldn't be very smart," she said.

"Subtlety isn't exactly his strong suit. I hacked into the top-secret Sherman Corp defense contracts database a year ago, and ended up spewing toxic fluids out of nearly every orifice after one of his representatives met me over at the local Denny's with an offer to buy the information back," Cube said bitterly. "I wouldn't put it past him at this point."

"He probably didn't take too kindly to being blackmailed," Treer said, with that slightly-amused quirk of a half-smile.

"He had it coming! His family's company has been dealing on both sides of the table since the 1930s!" Cube said.

"No doubt the prospect of the hush money was also a sufficient inducement," Treer suggested.

"Of course. The Cube gotta get _paid_, man!"

Treer just rolled his eyes.

It was a few moments before Lisa could speak, her jaw having dropped open during the exchange.

"Does anyone else know about this?" she'd asked him. "Did you try go to the media?"

"The information that Kyle attempted to steal _was_ classified," Treer said. "We got to him before the disease progressed too far, and then put him to work for us," he explained. "It's a mutually beneficial arrangement."

"It's better than being shipped off to Gitmo. Or having my internal organs liquefy into paste," Cube said with a shrug.

"Charles has been personally looking into the business dealings of the top defense contractors since he was appointed to the office of Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security four months ago. We actually suspect a lot of them of double-dealing," Treer explained. "But Sherman seems to think that Charles is singling him out. The antipathy between those two goes back over twenty years, so that's nothing new. Kyle's experience - and the fact that we got to him before the anthrax did its job – may have been the first link in the most recent chain of unpleasantness."

"They might be afraid that what he's told us is already enough to get them in serious trouble," he went on to say. "And we already know that he keeps certain people in his employ who are well-trained to deal with problems that might interfere with the company's bottom line, and whom they covertly farm out to other interested parties. They get CIA-level training, thanks to Sherman Sr. They've been pretty secretive about it – so much so that in our experience, most of these operatives don't seem to have any idea who it is they're really working for. We believe that Jackson Rippner is one of these operatives, and that the order to strike at the Keefes may have come from Ferris Sherman himself - most likely through a proxy, so he can't be tied back to the plot by any of the other participants."

"He's been slamming the attack pretty steadily in the news," Lisa remarked.

"Ah, methinks the gentleman doth protest too much," Cube interjected from where he was sitting.

"Why are you telling me all this?" she asked in shock. It was a lot to take in at once, and her mind reeled as she attempted to assimilate it. An assassination plot involving the Secretary of Defense? Assassins being trained by the order of a former director of the CIA? Actually, that last part wasn't so hard for her to believe, given the conspiracy theories that she'd heard over the years. _I guess you did lie, Jack - though maybe you just weren't aware of it._

"Until now, Sherman and his dad have been too wealthy, too powerful, and too well connected in Washington for anything we've gathered to stick. But they've started to get cocky, and the fact that _we_ have Rippner is working in our favor. We're actually having to hide him from other Intelligence agencies in order to keep him alive right now. We have our own inner circle – as a matter of fact, you're in it now – and Ferris Sherman has his. We're closer now than we've ever been to having evidence that might help us shut the Shermans down once and for all, and they know it. And that's where we need your help, Miss Reisert," Treer told her.

...

And that was how Lisa wound up getting her second job, as a new recruit of the Department of Homeland Security.

The first night, Treer had actually given her homework – a small manual entitled_ Booby Traps & Improvised Anti-Personnel Devices._ It looked to Lisa like something that survivalists out in the sticks - the type that kept their own underground bunkers full of canned goods and automatic weapons in breathless anticipation of the coming Apocalypse - might've written.

She devoured it in the space of a single evening.

The next day Lisa went to pick up her pistol from the gun shop, the standard Floridian mandatory waiting period having finally expired. Her training in firearms began at the local gun range. Martial Arts lessons soon began to take the place of afternoon seabreezes at the corner cafe.

A week passed, then another - and she'd gotten the feeling that she was being prepared for something specific – though she wasn't sure _what,_ yet. She had the feeling that Treer would tell her in time.


	5. The Illusion Of Control

"_Anhedonia sets in stealthily. Over the years it takes control of him. For example, he learns to defer gratification; this is a step in the dismal process of anhedonia. In learning to defer gratification, he experiences a sense of self-mastery; he has become stoic, disciplined; he does not give way to impulse. He has control. Control over himself in terms of impulses, and control over the external situation. He is a controlled and controlling person. Pretty soon he has branched out and is controlling other people, as part of the situation. He becomes a manipulator."_

--Philip K. Dick_ – VALIS._

* * *

Chapter 5 – The Illusion Of Control

The next symptom Jackson Rippner had of his continuing loss of control over himself and his situation came when he realized he'd lost all conception of the passing of time. He'd doze off, and have no idea if mere minutes or whole hours had gone by when he awoke. The lighting in the new room where they'd moved him to was never changed to approximate the transition from day to night.

A different orderly came in this time, older and probably more unshakable than the kid they'd sent in at the last place. The new guy never made conversation, and never asked him about anything except his current physical condition. There was no television, no radio - nothing but him and his own thoughts.

Altogether, it seemed a solid blockade had been put in place to block any scrap of information that might have clued him in as to where he was, and how long he'd been there since the last move. It didn't stop him from trying, though he wasn't having much success - a fact that was beginning to frustrate him to no end as he healed and more of his energy returned.

He'd even fished for information about Lisa, to no avail.

Treer came in sometimes and spoke to him about seemingly inconsequential, irrelevant things. His imposing presence, his ambiguous nature, and the utter randomness the topics he brought up disturbed Jackson greatly, and made him wonder if he hadn't dreamed the encounters. He figured that Treer had to have been given psychological training at some point - all Managers had - and was fishing for information himself. But for what? He already seemed to know who had contracted the Keefe job, and why.

After all, it wasn't like the Sherman Corporation was the only one to employ people in his profession. All of the major corporations had enforcers of some sort, who took care of situations in ways that were better left out of the accounting books, both in the US of A and in the outside world at large. And if the fates of entire nations and economies were bring decided more in boardrooms and over "power lunches" than by their own heads of state – well, it was just how the game was being played now. It was easy when one could have said heads of state put in place or taken out with a single order.

In all his time as a Manager, he'd never lost his head, never lost sight of the bottom line - namely, _his_ "bottom line." Beyond this, he didn't feel any loyalty to the ones he currently worked for, outside of his sense of professionalism - the fact that when he was "bought," he "stayed bought" - that and the fact that he knew they'd kill him without a second thought if he failed them. Hell, they were big enough to crush him without even _noticing_ it, or caring, the way that so many people who got in their way were crushed every single day; except that he'd performed his duties well over the decade he'd worked for them and for others like them. So well in fact, that he'd been personally singled out for the Keefe job on the basis of his past successes.

All those years, relishing having control; getting off on it. Control over every situation he'd found himself in, over everyone he'd come in contact with in the course of a job, had been the one constant in his life. _She'd_ taken all of that away in the space of a single night, simply by the sheer unpredictability of her nature. Just when he thought he'd had her all figured out, despite the enigma of her self-imposed isolation...

Jackson closed his eyes. He'd gone over it so many times in his head that it was starting to make him dizzy; but it always came cycling back around, skipping relentlessly through his mind like a broken record.

...

"You have a visitor." Treer's deep voice pulled Jackson out of his dazed half-slumber, and he opened his eyes to see the man himself as he entered the room.

Right behind him was Charles Keefe, who sat in the sparsely-padded metal chair across from where he lay.

Jackson read his death there, in Keefe's expression, in his eyes. This wasn't strange, since he'd pretty much been seeing death everywhere since his failure, and his capture at Lisa's hands. But this time, he knew it was real. He felt it in his gut. One false move, one foolish word, and he was a goner. Treer stood by the door, a silent observer.

As usual, Jackson did his best to hide his anxiety behind a cool, composed mask. However, he figured that he must have given something away somehow, because Keefe smiled for a moment – a smile that he knew all too well, having employed it often enough himself.

_Fuck. _At this moment, Jackson decided that he much preferred Treer's unfathomable sparring to having death stare him right in the face.

"I'm sure that by now, you're wondering why we went to the trouble of hiding you and patching you up, instead of letting you rot like we should have. You really haven't told us anything we didn't already know," Charles Keefe began.

"The thought has crossed my mind," Jackson said, wincing in horror when he heard his own voice break like a teenager's. He hoped it was just a sign that his windpipe was still on the mend.

"_Good_. It should. I can understand wanting to take _me_ out. Lord knows I haven't made very many friends in this job. But going after my _wife_, my_ kids,_ and trying to suck an innocent woman into your twisted little scheme – I really don't know why you couldn't have done us all the basic courtesy of just _dying_ when Lisa and her dad shot you."

"Sherman was going to have me killed," Jackson said.

"So it _was_ Sherman, specifically," Keefe shot back, and Jackson suddenly realized how he'd been trapped.

"Well, like I said before, he had someone else contact me – but yeah," Jackson said. _What the hell. The gig's up. I might as well just tell them..._

"Anything we can connect back to Ferris Sherman directly? Or is there anything else from your completely despicable, sad little career of murder and intrigue that you'd like to share with us, that we might be able to use to implicate him?"

Keefe's taunts were needling him - and even though his fear, Jackson could feel his anger building.

"Anyone who's been paying attention over the past fifty years should know what the Sherman clan's been up to," he said.

"And let me guess, you're just a cog in the machine right? A necessary evil," Keefe retorted.

"Hey, I'm just doing my part to defend the American Way Of Life, just like you" Jackson quipped sardonically.

Keefe stood quickly – and for a moment, Jackson thought the man would slug him.

"Oh really,"he snapped. "And were you defending the American way of life when you stalked Lisa Reisert for eight weeks, or when you threw her down the stairs in her father's house? Oh, she told us all about that. You do know what that looks like, don't you Jack? We all saw the bruises where you half-strangled her. Do you know how many women in this country end up in the Intensive Care Unit every day because of sick assholes like you? I don't suppose that bothers you very much though, does it?"

He was about to say it really didn't when the words caught in his throat, blocked by something that he could feel_,_ but he couldn't name. He tried again, and the only thing that emerged was a wheezing, gasping sound, as if his throat had been stabbed all over again. It felt frozen.

"How'd it feel to have your ass handed to you by a_ girl,_ Jack?" Keefe asked him. "Let me tell you something else – _that girl saved your life. _You'd be dead now if she _hadn't _stopped you. I bet you've never snuffed anyone very high-profile on our own home turf before. _Sherman never leaves any of his operatives alive_ in situations like this one would have been, if you'd succeeded. He couldn't take the chance that you'd talk, like you were doing just a second ago. You probably wouldn't have made it through the whole day." He smirked bitterly. "We found the bodies of your Russian friends the same day they sent that guy to poison you."

All Jackson could do was stare in response, as the muscles of his throat contracted painfully. He clamped his mouth shut, mortified by his body's strange reaction. _Why is this happening? What the fuck is happening to me?_

"You know what you're going to do to thank Lisa and her dad for saving your own miserable hide for you?" Keefe asked, leaning forward. "You're going to testify about Ferris Sherman and his little assassination bureau in front of the highest court in the land. You'll do that, or we'll hand you right back to him, to let him do whatever it was he was going to do with you before you got lucky and Lisa popped a cap in your ass."

Jackson felt the contents of his stomach churn unmercifully up his esophagus. Of course, that was exactly the moment his throat decided to unclench itself. He turned to the side, and was suddenly, violently ill.

"Yeah, that's about how I feel right now," Keefe muttered. "Get him cleaned up," he told the orderly, who was standing just outside the door. Looking up from the mess, Jackson saw Keefe leave. Treer regarded him with a single raised eyebrow before following.

...

The orderly followed Keefe's instructions to the letter, and gave Jackson a shot of something that blanked him out.

His first thought when he came to was how much his face hurt. His eyes were wet, and they felt puffy and hot. His nose felt stuffy and swollen. His shoulder felt almost as though it had been dislocated.

Treer was standing in the room. It was almost as though he'd never left.

"What did you do to me?" Jackson demanded. He still felt sick to his stomach. His throat felt battered, and his voice was a raw rasp...

"You did it to yourself. You had some sort of fit, after they hit you with more sodium pentathol. You were screaming bloody murder. We ended up having to sedate you again." He looked troubled. You honestly don't remember any of it?"

He honestly didn't. He found this fact to be highly disturbing, along with the realization that Treer had probably been present for all of it, whatever _it _had been.

"Oh, I like to get in some screaming in sometimes. Pop-psychologists say it's supposed to be good for you," he bantered.

"I see," Treer said, with another eyebrow-quirk.

"You know, I can't figure it out," Jackson rasped, after a moment.

"Figure what out?" Treer asked him.

"When exactly did Keefe turn you?" Jackson asked him. The question garnered another half-smile from Treer.

"Well, that's a very personal question, Mr. Rippner. You might very well ask when Charles and I both turned."

So saying, he left Jackson alone again with his thoughts.

* * *

Author's Note: There is actually a film called _The Assassination Bureau, _based on a book by author Jack London. It's a hoot, and a real treat for Steampunk fans, though it's pretty rare and hard to find. I've found it on ebay and , though not through any local DVD retailers.


End file.
